November 8, 2016

Return of the forgotten men, forgotten cities, and forgotten states

First things first: GET OUT AND VOTE. No matter where you live, it adds to Trump's national popular vote, and in this re-alignment election you never know whether your state will turn out to be a surprise.

For awhile Trump has been talking about taking care of the forgotten man and woman in America, and it's not only because he feels it's the right thing to be doing. It's also because, how else are you going to win over a large enough chunk of the other party's voters?

The ones who are hardcore partisans wouldn't defect in a million years. But the ones who have been taken for granted, abused, and told to shut up if they ask for anything in return for their votes, are more than open-minded -- they have been keeping their eyes peeled for something better to come along. Once Trump showed up, they knew -- he was it.

This far into the liberal vs. conservative culture war, the needs of the white working class had fallen by the wayside. Corporate raiders melt down their deeply rooted companies and ship the jobs abroad? Too bad: that's cheap foreign labor, and boosts the stockholders' bottom line. Immigrants (legal and illegal) are swarming the job market, the housing market, and the school market? Too bad: that's cheap labor, and extra demand for housing, schools, goods, etc., which means higher prices commanded by the sellers.

To harmonize with the identity politics orientation of the Democrat Establishment, the de-industrialization of the American economy is rationalized as a necessary part of multiculturalism.

Trump comes along and says, "The hell with multiculturalism, and the hell with de-industrialization."

Suddenly the Independents and Democrats in the white working class are going to vote Republican for president perhaps for the first time in their lives -- the first time since Reagan or H.W. Bush, at least.

Why does this particular group of forgotten people allow Trump to win the election? Because they live in places that were recently industrialized, and therefore large in population size. Maybe down from their peak circa 1970, but still large urban metro areas.

Trump is not flipping a handful here and a handful there in the rural parts of Michigan, but potentially the counties with the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th largest electorates from 2012 -- and the 4th already went to Romney then, leaving only Detroit itself still in the blue column.

In Ohio, he won't win the largest cities of Cleveland or Columbus, but Cincinnati is a definite possibility, along with the largish cities such as Toledo, Youngstown, and others. Throughout urban northeastern Ohio, traditionally a stronghold for Democrats, he will be flipping very large numbers of people in the dense formerly industrial region.

Likewise in Pennsylvania, it's not the great swath of sparsely populated red counties that he's gaining numbers in. In every good poll with regional breakdown (Axiom, Emerson, Trafalgar), Trump dominates northeastern PA -- Allentown, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, etc. This is the third-most populated region in the state, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and also a de-industrialized region with lots of people still hanging on and looking for someone to rescue them.

We could even see the residents of the Philly suburbs give more to Trump than they did to Romney, although as overly educated suburbanites, they are not going to turn to Trump en masse like the white working class to their north. Still, we don't need to flip those counties -- just do better than before, so we don't get drowned there.

And something tells me that the people from the Philly area are in their own way a forgotten people -- the forgotten ACELAs. Philly has never had any glamor to its image, not even after crime rates began plummeting during the 1990s. Even if you've never been to New York, you've heard of which neighborhoods used to be bad but are now luxury-only. You've heard of the status prestige from residing "inside the Beltway" in the DC area. And all the striver parents dream of sending their kids to the great schools -- public or boarding -- of the Boston metro.

But who the hell in the yuppie suburbanite class sets their sights first and foremost on Philly? "Uh, well, the Liberty Bell is there, and uh..." No one knows any of the neighborhoods, the suburbs, the schools (even strivers forget there's an Ivy there), or the regional culture aside from the cheese steak (prole chow anyway).

Being at the bottom of the ACELA totem pole must give them more grievances against the DC - New York - Boston wings of the Establishment (political, financial, academic). What is Philly's special wing of the Establishment? Worse, up until 2000 they hosted a major Naval Shipyard -- military, violence, guns, brawn... ugh, so not ACELA. So of any major cluster of suburbs along the East Coast, they would be the most likely to resonate with Trump's anti-Establishment message. And they are a very large chunk of the state's population.

Up until now, the most glaring difference between who voted blue or red was population density. As the culture war ground on, it looked like either the rural, small-town, and minor-suburban people would invade the cities and major suburbs, looting and sacking them, or that the cities would keep gentrifying the land farther and farther away from the urban core, while still packing people in very densely in these exurban rings.

Trump's re-alignment involves saving the cities, to the extent they have been de-industrialized. From now on, perhaps the divide will not be between higher-density and lower-density, but industrialized and re-industrialized vs. non-industrial cities that rely on finance, IT, higher ed, and other airy-fairy bubble-prone sectors that do not require a solid base of working class employees.

Right now, Pittsburgh and San Francisco are in the same blue boat -- perhaps before too long, it will be Pittsburgh and Scranton in red, against San Francisco and Denver still in blue.

Keep this in mind during the re-alignment -- contrary to red state chauvinism that only sees forgotten men in rural Plains counties, there are legions of forgotten men in blue-state cities that used to power the nation's industrial economy. They too have been chewed up and spit out by the Establishment, and they are far larger in number than suburbanites in Nebraska. Leaving them on the table was not only suicidal in the numbers game of winning elections, but in the greater project of putting our broken country back in working order.

Tonight, these legions are going to defect from the Democrats (at the top of the ticket, anyway) in a stinging rebuke of decades of being taken for granted, robbed of middle-class dignity, and chastised for piping up about the corporate globalist trade deals that are sacrosanct among the party's elites.

By breaking the cuckservative taboo against courting any urban voters (aside from preening attempts to get ghetto blacks to worship Milton Friedman), Trump has made it possible and even likely to flip entire "safe" blue states in the Rust Belt and trans-Bostonian New England.

Tonight the forgotten men, cities, and states will all be remembered by the elites -- too little, and too late.

44 comments:

Hallelujah! Great post, as usual. Thanks for so many great ones during this election.

Two votes for Trump in NH here this morning. A month or two ago you had laid out a cogent case for my wife and I to vote for Hassan over Ayotte ("with friends like that..."), and so we did.

We have the best forgotten people, don't we folks!? I'm praying in all ways today that the hill people, the forgotten urban people, the lazy people, the decent people, the educated and poorly educated people, and the angry people all find their way to the school, the precinct, the town hall and scratch or touch or fill in a bubble for the madman and for themselves.

I'm not sure about winning Virginia. Should the results be either a clear Hillary win or a very narrow Trump win, I expect the media to go into full Hillary's got it in the bag mode to try and depress Trump voters in later voting states.

I don't think it will make any difference. I think many people decided weeks or even months ago whether they would vote or not. And though some Republicans acted nervous about Trump for eons, the majority will listen to their gut and vote Trump no matter anyone tells them. The media barrage has soured some people on Trump, but it's not like that's created enthusiasm for voting Hillary. Note that the Dems have flat or only slightly increased early voting turnout compared to the past in many areas, and a fair amount may have voted Trump anyway.

In spite of Trump's supposed lack of (discernible) popularity, he hasn't dragged down Rep. turnout.

I was just listening to my music on shuffle and was struck by the tune and lyrics of this song, This is the Day by The The. Seems up your alley, Agnostic -- are you a fan? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy0rbxbNmOI

On election day, this song hits the mood -- upbeat, but a bit guarded, and regretful as well. The lyrics hit to the bone (pasted below).

By the way, I checked their twitter feed, and it turns out they are pro-Wikileaks and anti-Clinton Jill Stein supporters! that's worth something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy0rbxbNmOI

Well you didn’t wake up this morning ’cause you didn’t go to bedYou were watching the whites of your eyes turn redThe calendar on your wall was ticking the days offYou’ve been reading some old lettersYou smile and think how much you’ve changedAll the money in the world couldn’t buy back those days

You pull back the curtainAnd the sun burns into your eyesYou watch a plane flyingAcross a clear blue skyThis is the day, your life will surely changeThis is the day, when things fall into place

You could have done anything, if you wantedAnd all your friends and family think that you’re luckyBut the side of you they’ll never seeIs when you’re left alone with your memoriesThat hold your life together, like glue

Reminder: when these talking heads put on their act about "Oh geez, oh golly, these results are so surprising... the data was so fucked up, and we're just as shell-shocked as you guys are at home."

It's all bullshit. They knew about the IBD poll, the LA Times poll and why it's better than the others, they knew about the enthusiasm gap (particularly the drop-off among blacks and young people), they knew everything.

They were not ignorant, they were dishonest liars shilling for a doomed and failed candidate, in the vain hope that it would shore up her support.

Going forward only these two polls should be monitored. They are definitely the gold standard of the polling industry. The rest of the polls are garbage at best if not outright propaganda vehicles. You knew this already Agnostic but now it's obvious to all. Even if I was a liberal I would not follow the wrong polls in the future because they are so far removed from reality.

Media refusing to call obvious wins for Trump -- don't they get that each time they fuck with us, we will break them into smaller companies when the trustbusting begins?

Without a media monopoly, there would be many defectors from the collusion of withholding "calls" on behalf of the Clintons.

Do they really think Trump isn't going to make a point of their dishonesty for the rest of his life? Six years from now: "Y'know folks, these dishonest scum refused to call an obvious win on election night..."

Not only is the Clinton campaign and Establishment refusing to concede -- now even the media is refusing to concede. They fancy themselves as powerful as the political Establishment, as though they were the candidate / campaign in the race.

Agnostic, I also give you credit for being so confident Trump would win. You really have your pulse on the political landscape and the mood of the country, MUCH more so than the MSM. Plus you are a hell of a lot more interesting.Thank you for this blog, I enjoy it tremendously.

I've said it before, but a major part of knowing what's going on is ignoring the media (whether TV or internet). Not just here and now, but having ignored them your whole life. All those years of conditioning.

I wish I could've shared in the surprise, joy, etc. that others felt last night, but I'd already become convinced that he would win awhile ago. The main emotion I felt was when the media were forced to call a state for Trump -- almost sadistic, like "That's right, cry uncle, bitch!"

I was at a state GOP victory party tonight with many state politicians, congresspeople, etc. I was able to see the faces of the crestfallen cucks who hoped that Trump would lose so they could try again in 2020 with Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan or some other hack. While others were celebrating, some of them were actually crying because they didn't want him to win. It was shameful to witness and shows just how self centered cuckservatives are. Fortunately most of the crowd was excited to see Trump win.

It's Donald Trump for the next eight years. I'm glad everyone stepped up and I'm glad Michigan and Wisconsin came through. Michigan seemed like a done deal but Wisconsin was a nice touch. I also got the razor thin Minnesota loss I wanted, which should send a strong message to the Lutheran refugee importers who should be rattled that even Minnesotans are tired of things as usual. I was also disappointed Colorado broke the way I did, I thought he would have won that state. Oh well, he should end up with around 310 electoral votes when they finally call it for him in Arizona, Michigan, Alaska, and New Hampshire.

I'm physically overwhelmed, sick, from the last several days before Election Day, especially Election Eve: I went down swinging. Knocked on doors and talked to people until it was black outside. Always confident and cautiously optimistic, but knew each and everyone of else still had to do our part and with all our hearts. Gotta recuperate and will say more at a later date.

"While others were celebrating, some of them were actually crying because they didn't want him to win."

Did anyone else think Reince Priebus looked that way at the victory speech? "Great, now my corporate globalists bosses are really going to kill me."

The good thing is that the cucky voters who they appeal to were just about all on-board with Trump. Even the ones who worry out loud about wishing he would soften his gosh-darned tone. Today they're grinning from ear to ear.

Your guys' Facebook feeds probably look similar to mine: every self-absorbed overly educated yuppie striver transplant is not taking stock of what they've done wrong to America and Americans, to explain their "shock" upset, but screeching and crying like sore losers because their side is perfect and cannot possibly lose a fair game.

For younger readers, it was nowhere near this level in 2000. It's more like 2004, after four incessant years of "Bush = Hitler". They and the media have been trying to make Trump into Bush III for over a year now, and they seem determined to continue that in order to rationalize their pathetic loss.

Deep down, on a gut intuition level, they know that the Trump movement wants to drain more than just the swamp in DC -- we're draining all of these yuppie transplant metros where the 1% have been busy confiscating and transferring wealth from the bottom 99% for the past 20-30 years.

In order to afford their yuppie lifestyle in the future, they're going to have to be able to do something real, like invent a new kind of paint, or streamline production at a shoe factory, or manage the supply chain of furniture manufacturing.

I'll put up a post later in more detail, but for now just try to remember that it's only the overly educated yuppies who are reacting this way to our victory. You're not socially connected to that many people under 40 who do not have college degrees, and they're not throwing temper tantrums about moving to Canada.

And as noted in a recent post about how progs are just counter-cultural posers who don't really care about blocking TPP and gutting NAFTA, anti-war, anti-corruption, etc., they have instantly flipped into "discredit and demolish Trump" mode.

Michael Tracey is the usual exception.

They have no role in the future, as they seek no common ground with us. We could show that our main issues are 99% similar, or compromise to make 99% similar, and they would still reject partnership because it's all about the counter-cultural persona for them. Lifestyle radicals.

"I was also disappointed Colorado broke the way I did, I thought he would have won that state."

It's an Establishment stronghold on the Republican side (Bush country -- and Hinckley country), and a yuppie striver transplant magnet on the Indy / Dem side. Imagine if Northern Virginia were a state, and had a libertarian streak from being out West.

They think they're so anti-Establishment just because they legalized weed. But when the Lutheran Triangle sends a bigger middle finger to Washington, you lose all street cred in Colorado.

I think a big part of why the Lutheran Triangle managed to uncuck itself, compared to their cousins back in Germany and Sweden, is the social conformist pressure they felt from their non-Germanic American neighbor states.

If other nice normal Midwestern Americans are revolting against the Establishment, maybe it's not so out-of-bounds for us to do it too.

That's such a yuge crack in the Dem coalition, people can't appreciate it unless you've been to / live in the Midwest.

We can totally work the remainder of them into the fold by emphasizing the "regular, normal, unpretentious Americans" angle, now that the Dems are reducing themselves to just the stuck-up bi-coastal elites.

Can we get that Mike Lindell guy from MyPillow.com to be a "restoring manufacturing" ambassador from President Trump to Minnesota?

If you live in the Midwest, that task should always be a subtext when you're talking politics or discussing the elite in any way. Before, it was not elites vs. people, it was liberal vs. conservative -- pitting liberal people vs. conservative people, and actually liberal elites vs. conservative elites.

Now you can truthfully portray the Dems and their leadership as only looking out for self-aggrandizing greedy parasites from the East Coast and the West Coast, out of touch and glib and callous toward their so-called fellow Americans everywhere in between.

Make it come home by relaying all these remarks from the bi-coastal strivers about how white people in the middle fucked up, fuck the Midwest, flyover country is full of idiots who don't realize their own interests, etc. They don't actually care about you being liberals anymore -- you voted against the pretentious and rapacious Establishment, and you must now be punished.

Living in the cuck belt, the working stiffs all seemed to be pleased with the results. My coworkers were horrified, with one of them proclaiming out loud about how he needs to put off retirement a few more years because his 401k will lose so much value. It was entertaining telling him that the Dow actually went up today.

With work and Facebook, it seems like the married women with kids were for Trump, married women without kids seemed 50/50, unmarried women were for Clinton but with varying levels of support, and the catladies and divorcees seemed to be at Defcon 1 in terms of how their fellow "sisters" stabbed Hillary in the back. With white women going for Trump, it appears that all whites are now persona non grata in the new Democrat party. They really need to rethink their anti-white strategy before Trump shaves off more of them for 2020.

It's easy to blame Trump's Western performance on a brown surge, but how goes the whites there?

I don't have much personal experience with the Western states, but it seems like Arizona still has a pretty rugged streak. Plus it's got a lot of (presumably) conservative old white folks. The Dems had to stuff the ballot box with busloads of probably illegal Mexicans to take out Joe Arpaio. One talking head said that the Dems nationally coordinated an effort to beat him. They won't tolerate any attempts to keep America white(r).

Nevada was pretty close; but it's probably the most rootless and decadent of all the states. Hard to get people interested in civics and again I'd imagine the Dems worked their asses off to bus Mexicans to the polls.

Oregon, as expected, did the best of the Pac. coast states. It's a lot whiter than CA and has fewer yuppies than Wash. But it was still a 10 point loss in OR. At the end of the day, flaky and trendy posturing seems to be more important in these places than delivering concrete measures of improved security and stability.

McMullin got whooped in Utah, evidently the Mormons realized what a dumb ruse he was.

Colorado's been way too yuppified, with the accompanying waves of cheap brown labor not helping the cause. Not enough rooted people.

New Mexico showed it's true (brown) colors by vowing not to take part in the celebration thrown by down-to-Earth founding stock Americans. Still, he didn't do that bad here since it's a rural state that's not fashionable.

Refreshing to see the lack of pandering to the West this cycle. A big reason that the media and the cucks have been pushing the Latino pandering is that the West historically and to this day has the most Mestizos. Ya know, we ought to shake the GOP's WASPY image by embracing the brown. Who needs the Teutons and Scots-Irish of the heartland? What striving bonus points do they have?

Trump and his team discerned that long-suffering whites in unfashionable areas of states with no or very old mountain ranges had been forgotten by everyone, even the GOP's policy makers and GOTV strategists. The Dems urban pandering alienated them too. An electoral bounty awaited any candidate who could successfully summon these people to fend off Dem chicanery in Detroit, Philly, and Cleveland (like having the dead vote, the busing of hapless college kids and blacks to the polls,and urban Dem machines tampering with voting equipment and ballots). It was really tough to pull off, but he managed to do it. The GOP seems to have backed off this strategy from 1992-2012, perhaps because they didn't want to be seen as racist for shedding light on the Dem's rigging of these states. It didn't help that the likes of G.H. W. Bush, McCain, Romey etc. never seemed to relate the Rust Belt.

Arizona, like Georgia, is also getting overwhelmed by yuppie transplants who are making it slightly bluer over time. Mexicans (blacks) have been there forever, it's the composition of white people that's changing.

I was reflecting on the performance in Maine ('bout a 3 point loss) and NH (very close loss). It sucks to lose the entire Northeast, but his best performance in the region came in the two aforementioned states. Why?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_non-Hispanic_white_population - NH and Maine are really white. And not as obnoxiously liberal as equally white Vermont. Why don't white New England states vote Trump? It seems like since the early 90's a lot of animosity has developed in New England and the coastal Northeast towards the heartland. God knows why. Maybe regional tensions are just an inevitable feature of striving periods.

What kind of place wants Trump?- Heavily white areas without either Pac. coast airheads or the arrogant Yankees or Scorsese-Americans of the Northeast.- Places with a large Scots-Irish population who vote as a racial bloc to keep other races (esp. blacks) at bay.- A lack of hipsters and yuppies in the area, or at least enough Archie Bunker- Americans to offset the striving mischief and narcissism of asshats.

Trump is the most Northeast friendly candidate in ages, yet he connected best with voters in typical GOP strongholds (much of the inner West, the Plains, The South) and with forlorn Midwestern and PA working stiffs. Partisanship is so asinine right now that even Trump couldn't push the NE into the GOP camp. People more or less voted their partisan loyalty. Exception? Less educated whites in the Midwest and PA who may not have even voted in several recent elections.

A commonly given reason for the GOP pres. candidate failing in the Northeast is that the recent culture wars have caused the culturally and politically "moderate" (e.g. liberal) Northeast to be quarantined away from the bible bashers who dominated the discourse of the GOP election cycle. But Trump has made virtually no reference to religion and has welcomed gays more openly than any candidate before. He's not the kind of pious dick head that people in the Northeast detest. I guess it's just a D and R thing. Put a D next to Trump's name, voila, he wins the Northeast.

The good folk of the NW Midwest are probably sick and tired of the Clinton's bullshit. Plus these states are pretty white, albeit not as white as several New England states that voted for Clinton. Iowa has far fewer yuppies or transplants as MN or WI. Besides, Iowa has no real Dem. machine to speak of. Few blacks. MN and WI have a decent amount of blacks, and they stink. Worst ones in the country. The one's who got to Detroit/Chicago/Cleveland/Gary are bad enough. Shittier still are the one's who went to Milwaukee and Minneapolis to mooch off the benefits that are still quite high and exploit nordic naivete. It's like the further north you go, the wimpier and more gullible the whites get so the blacks get worse in turn. And the Dems wouldn't have it any other way.

We're long overdue for an appraisal of the dark Dem. machine that decides elections unless there is massive white support of the GOP. How 'bout closing inner city polls altogether, or having paper ballots only (to be counted well away from darkie Dems) ,or strict observation (or perhaps complete handling) of the polls by neutral and visibly authoritative security, Really, the worst abuses tend to occur in Cleveland, Detroit, Philly, Charlotte, etc. It shouldn't be that difficult to have a 3rd party force keeping things on the level.

Notably, the media acted concerned about "intimidation" and "suppression" ,acting like measures of vote integrity keep the black or Mexican man down. The Trump team did far more to raise awareness of election tom-foolery than any other candidate ever has. The Dems and their allies were clearly nervous this time 'round about being exposed. They may have stopped short of outright giving Hillary PA and MI (and evidently didn't even really bother with OH) because they knew that Trump ran a much cleaner effort and wasn't going to tolerate cheating. He'd have the advantage in a dispute.

One wonders just how much of the vote over the last 50 years was contrived by Dems who warded off suspicion under the guise of "progress" and "enfranchisement" .

NH and Maine were pretty close, not really a failure or disappointment.

NH had that traitor Ayotte who's been bad-mouthing Trump the whole time. It killed her own chances (karma), but it also brought down Trump's support among whoever was supporting her. Trump and the tight-race Senator did better when they supported each other, like in WI.

Maine is getting Portland-ified like Oregon has been, with predictable electoral consequences.

Both are do-able next time, and no reason to resent them for falling a little short this time.

Race doesn't make that much of a difference in the Midwest, as shown by basically all of it going red this time except for Chicago.

If the goal was to gin up white identity politics, then the result would have been Ted Cruz and the Tea Party on steroids. It would've failed even worse than McCain / Palin.

The Rust Belt conversion was entirely based on class and economics -- there's almost no immigration, legal or illegal, going on there. You've got your black ghettos, but they've had those for decades, including when the Midwest was mostly Republican or toss-up (including Illinois).

Trump didn't win a higher share of the white vote by appealing to white identity politics, but populist / working class interests -- the bulk of working-class people being white, just like the bulk of any normal group in America.